


Gille Dubh

by 1sabella



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Folklore, Gen, Picts, Saxons, Vikings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1sabella/pseuds/1sabella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(He finds it difficult to think of earthmen, of their constricting bodies and sluggish blood. Much better fitting as woodfolk who have mastered legs.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sìbhreach

**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter titles are in Scottish Gaelic, because I am both Scottish and vaguely pretentious. The chapter titles are variations of the word for fairy and Gille Dubh is a tree guardian type figure in Scottish folklore. He is said to have dark hair, and his name actually translates as "dark-haired boy" (therein lies my excuse).
> 
> edit: the updates for this will be slow, most likely, although I fully plan to finish it at some point. apologies!
> 
> edit: as of now (jan 2014) i'm thinking that at some point ~~if~~ when this is finished i'll probably repost it as a one shot. so it's unlikely to be updated in this form, but i'll try and get more of it done this year! it can be a new year's resolution.

Merlin awakes.

 

His mother begins to cry, but her warm embrace has become ice-sticky and the chill permeates to his core. His father looks resigned. Merlin can see the pain in his eyes.

 

Merlin sleeps.

 

* * *

 

 

From here, perched on the topmost needle of the tallest pine in this land, he can see the earthmen struggling onwards. They are shades of soil, dark and rich and warm, and he can taste the grain of goodness running through them. Theirs is the best kind of sap.

(He finds it difficult to think of earthmen, of their constricting bodies and sluggish blood. Much better fitting as woodfolk who have mastered legs.)

Their leader's crown of gold – the very colour of magic itself – calls to him. This man's beginning was a sorrowful joy, and the smearing handprints of the ancient priestesses are visible even now. He decides to follow. Myrddin's path is decided on a whim (a perverted destiny that has fallen to the wayside coming to fruition despite a death (and a rebirth (and the whims of an almost-dryad are mysterious at the best of times)))


	2. cruthlach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knights of Camelot can only be unnerved at such a display of the Old Religion's might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story's updates are no doubt going to be extremely irritating little snippets - I'm finding it difficult to write at length as my motivation isn't great, so I'm writing drabbles and posting them asap to make myself continue it. I'm not planning on this being too long, but for now I'm hoping to finish it fairly soon.

Arthur Pendragon calls his men to a halt. 

They have journeyed many days north of Camelot, in search of alliances with the peoples of Alba, but there is still a long way to go before they can journey across the sea to the castles of Innse-Gall.

These lands are both kin and stranger to the places he knows and loves. The earth rises and falls with harsh beauty, and the ancient bones of the hills give rise to the tow'ring Caledonian forests. The further they journey, the wilder it becomes.

“Right, men. Let us rest here for a moment.”

Lancelot, whose nobility lies at the core of his soul, bestowed not by birthright but by God. He looks about him with the keen eye of a hunter, then blinks as he spots something that unsettles him.

“Sire, I feel that I must request we bide here for the night.”

“Is there something the matter, Sir Lancelot?”

“No, not so much anything wrong – it's only that I have this feeling of being watched.”

The knights fall silent and look towards the trees surrounding them. They would have attempted to circumvent the forest, but it is so vast and covers so much of Alba that there can be no avoiding it. It throbs with life and the kind of deep, natural magic that saturates soil and feeds the roots of trees. Knights of Camelot can only be unnerved at such a display of the Old Religion's might.

Arthur is about to scoff at such a suggestion when a red doe and her fawn tip-toe out of the vegetation. His rebuttal quickly turns to laughter, and Lancelot goes pink in the face with the realisation that his warning was quite unnecessary.

“Well, Lancelot, I think we've all had quite enough for today. Perhaps we're getting a bit tired, if your intuition is playing up. Well done, though, for sensing those deer were nearby. I didn't hear anything!”

“I don't think it was that which unnerved me-”

Lancelot goes unheard, and high above, Gille Dubh, the immortal one, once man and once Emrys, laughs.

 

The journey to the islands west of Alba is long and treacherous, but King Uther cannot leave his people open to the threat of the invaders from the north. They are not of Alba nor Albion, but of a land far to the north and east, and though they have been settled in these lands for time unrecorded they have a thirst and greed for war that must be diverted. Thus Arthur and his retinue journey north. Arthur does not believe that the Jarls of the Ostmen can be trusted as far as they can spit, but remains faithful to his father in all things. As of yet, he has not met any man who can challenge his duty to the crown.

They are no more than a day's ride from the first of the fiefdoms when, suddenly, they are ambushed in a gully and forced into defending themselves against a horde of ruffians. The men who rush out at them are fair haired and their tongue is both guttural and fluid as silk on the ear. When the last of the barbarians has retreated or fallen to a knight's sword, Arthur surveys the ground before him.

“Those of you with any knowledge of these lands – come cast your eyes on this.”

Gwaine swaggers forward. He and Lancelot are the most well-travelled, and they both crouch down to examine the comb which lies half-trampled into the mud. It's fairly large and made of a dull, silvery metal. The hand-grip has been fashioned into an intricate falcon of some kind.

“Well?”

“Sire, I believe this to be a token of the Ostmens' leader.” Gwaine looks grave as he rubs the metal between his gloved fingers.

“A token?”

“These men have a thirst for war and conquer like no other, but they're almost as proud of their hair as he is, if such a thing is possible,” Lancelot interjects. “Such a comb is worthy of a leader, and as such would only be given to a trusted follower.”

“Are you suggesting-”

“-That this is a planned attack? Yes, Sire. The Ostmen are fickle if they think themselves deceived in any way.”

“Do they seek war, then?”

“Aye, 'tis possible, Lancelot.”

“Gwaine, reign in your scare-mongering. This could be nothing more than a discontented chieftain wishing chaos between Ostman and Briton. We must seek more information before making a decision to turn back.”

Later, though, Arthur takes Bors aside and whispers an order that sees him making for Camelot at first light.

 

They rouse themselves when they hear Bors ride off, secure in the knowledge that if traps await them, reinforcements will not be too far behind. After all, as soon as they reached these forests the hunting had become most excellent, and food was hardly scarce. Each one of them might spot a slight figure, dressed all in the colours of the trees, but if they do see a pale, laughing face through the trunks and branches, none of them ever mention it.


	3. sìtheanach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems important, somehow, that they be kept safe.

The decision to follow the warriors was on the spur of the moment, but Myrddin cannot regret it for all that he avoids the affairs of mortals. After all, it's one of the most exciting things that's happened to him in a long time, as long as he's been here – he doesn't know how long that is though. Trees count only in seasons. 

The leader, in his shiny metal, marches on ahead of his men as if leading a charge. He is full of life, that one, his bravery bleeding out behind him and spurring his men onwards. The trees ahead of them are uneasy; Myrddin heeds their warning and sends tendrils of fear into the mad little brains of all the creatures round about and scatters them, leaving the warriors alone in the forest. True enough the noble one soon calls out to the leader. 

He has to concentrate hard to hear them over the forest-sounds which forever fill his ears. 

“Arthur-”  
“I know, Lancelot. We must proceed with the utmost caution.”

Arthur. Bear. There are bears aplenty in these forests of course, but Myrddin has been encouraging them to seek food and shelter far from Arthur and his men. It seems important, somehow, that they be kept safe. 

Myrddin can feel the soft footsteps of the enemy ahead like the faintest prickle of insects crawling on one's skin. He itches to brush them off. 

This foe is different to those before, though; they are stealthier, darker, used to travelling in silence through the forest. Myrddin sends an old oak crashing down next to where they lie in wait. He will not do more than this – it is not his due to interfere in mortal warfare, and these warriors have his forest in their bones. The oak was dying though, and what is it to him if it startles them, or warns Arthur? 

The warriors settle again in their wait, their lances discarded in favour of short daggers and javelins. Only a handful of them are on horseback, and they stand well back from the site of ambush. Their blood is up and their teeth are bared in anticipation. At the sound of movement, they rise and draw their weapons.

The battle is met in an almost silent struggle, and though the painted men are unprotected by mail or armour, they fight fervently and fiercely. When it is over, Arthur's men cannot be said to have won, although they have escaped with their lives.

x

“Sire, they were waiting for us. They knew we were coming.”  
“I don't like our chances of reaching the Ostmen without another encounter, that's for sure.”  
“We must press on. Even if we are being attacked by our potential allies, it is our duty to at least attempt to broker peace. We camp here tonight.”

x

The third attack is in the dead of night. 

Myrddin has left Arthur and his warriors to themselves, preferring to wander alone through the trees in his favourite form; that of a dark-haired boy. It feels almost as natural as to be breathing through the lungs of a rowan or soaring on high-reaching spirals of air, perched on the back of a sea hawk. It's as he's sprawled over the roots of a great oak that he sees the tension wash through the air like a heat haze, and he drifts through the vegetation like the spirit he is until he comes upon the clearing where Arthur and his men have been surrounded in their sleep. The man on watch is already dead. 

The leader kicks Arthur in the side, and he grasps his sword and is in a battle stance before he's even opened his eyes. At a nod from their commander, the intruders manhandle the knights into restraints before they have even a chance at fighting back. Arthur breathes heavily, glancing around wildly before lowering the point of his sword to the ground. 

“What do you want?”

The man leans forward, less than arm's length away from Arthur. He speaks slowly, carefully, intoning each word with a strange significance. His legs are bound, and his beard is full, and his neck is thick and strong. Arthur blinks, then swallows.  
“Leave now, Arthur, son of Uther. Leave.”

x

Faced with certain death, or inability to carry out his duty, Arthur's head and heart are heavy as he and the knights begin the long journey home.


	4. sìthiche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His bare feet are covered in the rich earth between the roots of the tree, and as Arthur draws closer he can see that the boy's clothes are woven of a very odd-looking fabric. How strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: updates for this, at present, will be slow and probably without any kind of schedule. I fully plan on finishing it though so it's not abandoned!

Arthur stands strong against the gale of his father's wrath – more easily done when it's not directed at him – and waits until he's blown himself out before offering his opinions.

Uther rails and rails against the villainy of the northern peoples – wilfully ignoring his allies' repeated raids of their lands – and finally, in a last gust of anger, commands his messengers to ride throughout the kingdom and carry the land-owners a message from their ruler;

“Gather your men. We prepare for war.”

Arthur seeks in vain to make his father think clearly, but he is too bitter and betrayed to see the casting out of his son as anything other than an act of war. No matter that Camelot can hardly afford to mount a campaign at this time.

 

X

 

They go north again, Arthur and his men, but this time they ride in formation with the sound of the initial force, a few thousand men, marching behind. Initial force is perhaps a misnomer – these are the men that can be spared by the barons and lords of Uther's lands, and the few (very few) volunteers who perhaps don't remember the army's most recent campaigns, as well as Camelot's standing army who have been pulled from the fields and valleys.

 

X

 

When they reach the fringe of the Forest, they are greeted, somewhat incongruously, by a peasant boy wearing brightly coloured rags, who really looks like he ought to be uprooting kale somewhere, rather than standing in front of an ancient oak and grinning so hard that he looks positively imbecilic. To be fair, he probably is, seeing as he's apparently attempting to stop an army in its tracks by beaming at it.

His bare feet are covered in the rich earth between the roots of the tree, and as Arthur draws closer he can see that the boy's clothes are woven of a very odd-looking fabric. How strange.

 

When he's only a few feet away, Arthur calls out, “Hail, boy! What's your business?”

“I wish only to greet the great Arthur and his warriors.”

“Do you have a name, boy?”

“Yes, I suppose I do!” The boy looks terribly excited about that fact, and Arthur absent-mindedly waves his army to a halt as he watches him ponder.

“It must be Merlin, I think – certainly that is the name my birth mother gave to me.”

"...Right. Well, Merlin, I must ask you to bugger off so that I can get on with conquering this blasted forest."

 

At this the lad looks utterly affronted, as if Arthur's just threatened to carry his grandmother off as the spoils of war.

 

"Blasted forest?! What's it ever done to you?"

"Gods, you really are an imbecile, aren't you?"

Arthur's knights are just watching this exchange with identical looks of confusion, because their prince and leader has apparently halted an awful lot of soldiers in order to have an argument with a local farmer.

"I'd rather be an imbecile than a prat."

"Excuse me?"

"Ah, yes – royalty – I meant, I'd rather be an imbecile than a princely prat, your lord highness majesty."


End file.
